Owen Williams: Blessed are the Treeplanters [20 min listen]

Voices of the Countryside

What if our uplands are already producing good biodiversity and tree planting will damage this and their potential to capture carbon? Is there time to rethink, or has the expensive rewilding express train already left the station?

Whilst few could argue that our country needs more woodland, the difficulty is agreeing on where we plant all those trees. We frequently hear politicians uttering the well-worn cliché “the right tree in the right place” in the hope that they won’t be pressed to expand upon that platitude. Politicians face difficult choices and whilst some progress is being made to get farmers to give up land for trees, it shouldn’t be surprising that our uplands are being targeted for tree planting.

However, having read a lot of science on peat uplands and talked to several of the leading experts in this field I am led to believe that planting trees in these complex and finely balanced ecosystems may not be the climate change and nature crisis silver bullet we are being told it is. And yet governments, terrified of Thunbergian anger over apparent inaction, are pressing ahead and welcoming anyone with a spade and a sack full of seedlings to head up the hills and get on with the job. After all who doesn't like woodland? so "blessed are the tree-planters."